Project meetings
Project retrospective meeting template
A project retrospective meeting template that finds the balance between structure and freedom.
Template author
Marie Prokopets [Source]
About this template
Marie Prokopets, the co-founder of document security company Nira, recommends this agenda as a recipe to “cook up” as the situation calls for it — leaving plenty of room for customization! First, there's a concise introduction about the purpose of the meeting to “set the setting” for your team.
She then calls for a team review of the shortcomings of the latest project and encourages your team to think deeper about the root causes of those shortcomings. Teams will gain insight about what went well and what didn’t from the last project cycle, and then move forward from the meeting with solutions and action items.
Project Retrospective Meeting Agenda
1. Set the stage (5 minutes) Acknowledge your team, provide an on-ramp & establish context and boundaries. Add context for your team to understand the purpose of the meeting.
What are your goals?
Why are they fitting?
Are you reviewing an entire project?
Just the last sprint?
2. Gather data (10 minutes) The goal is for the team to collect specific types of ideas and observations about the project along the lines of:
What are we doing well?
What are we not doing well?
What have we learned?
What fell short?
3. Brainstorm ideas (5 minutes) Dig for the root cause for the concerns.
Why are we doing x well?
Why are we not doing y well?
Why were we able to learn from x?
Why did y fall short?
4. Pick a solution (5 minutes) Enlist the help of your team and have a vote (can be anonymous if preferred) to choose 2-3 top solutions. Then, review them as a team and assess their feasibility!
What changes need to be made to implement a solution?
Do they over-extend the team’s ability to adapt?
5. Conclude with purpose (5 minutes)
Meeting summary: Distill all findings from the session into a few key takeaways.
Action items: Make your descriptions of action items as specific as possible, including clear steps, owners, and deadlines.
Methods of measurement: Lay the groundwork to measure the results of your actions.
Source: Marie Prokopets
When to use this template
This template is ideal for fostering team collaboration in project retros. By encouraging continuous input from anyone on the team, the template ensures you’re creating a comfortable and inclusive environment, and ends on a strong note with a summary of the meeting, a plan about the next steps to take, and how to measure the results of those actions.
Prokopets’ emphasis on customization means that this template is great for reflecting upon any team project or process, even if you don’t use agile methodology.
